Removing the veil of Taqiyya: Dimensions of the biography of Agha-yi Buzurg (a sixteenth-century female saint from Transoxiana)

This dissertation focuses on a little-known but very important treatise, the biography of a female saint, Agha-yi Buzurg, titled Maz&dotbelow;har al-`aja'ib wa majma` al-ghara'ib (Manifestation of Miracles and Collection of Marvels) written by her disciple H&dotbelow;afiz&dotbelow; Bas&dotbelow;ir, who relates his master's ideas and teaching as well as events in the final years of her life before her death ca. 1523 in the vicinity of Bukhara.;Maz&dotbelow;har al-`aja'ib mostly records Agha-yi Buzurg's discourses (maqala) which are not organized in a systematic order. These discourses present a network of symbols and myths that encompass the mystery of Agha-yi Buzurg's path called t&dotbelow;ariqa-yi ahl al-bayt. Conceptualized ideas are dispersed and buried under a web of ambiguous metaphors as well as obscure references with puzzling dialectics of veiling and unveiling.;Employing the Foucauldian understanding of discursive formations and following Etan Kohlberg's treatment of taqiyya in Shi`i religion, my study demonstrates how the statements recorded in the text formed the discourses that are governed by the rules of taqiyya. Additionally, Antoine Faivre's methodological approach to esoteric texts has helped me to infer that the discourses of Maz&dotbelow;har al-`aja'ib are shaped within the esoteric world view, one of whose common denominators is secrecy and concealment.;By removing the veil of taqiyya from the discourses through the lenses of interdisciplinary methodologies of textual, historical, and cultural-contextual analyses, I conclude that it is Shi`i---namely Isma`ili---historical-cultural patterns and an esoteric-theosophical set of symbolic representation that served as models not only for construction of the reality in which Agha-yi Buzurg and her followers lived, but also as paradigms for conceptualizing their identities.;Early sixteenth-century Transoxiana, the period when Agha-yi Buzurg lived, witnessed the decline of the Timurids and the rise of the Shaybanids. Generally, this period has been viewed as a time of renewal of Chingizid customs, strengthening of shari`a, strong adherence to Sunni Islam, competition of Sufi brotherhoods and systematic growth of the Naqshbandiya. However, as rendered through the discourses of Maz&dotbelow;har al-`aja'ib , despite the anti-Shi`i policies of the early Shaybanid rulers, the religious environment of the period seems to have offered diverse choices.